100 per cent Rubbish!

That is it, I’ve had enough! Something needs to be done about people, notably sports people, using percentages incorrectly about their effort, e.g. “I gave it 110%, but next time I’ll give it 120%”. No, no, nooooooo!

You cannot give 120% effort, the maximum effort you can give, by definition, is 100%, no more, that would be impossible.

Athletes and such like either do not understand or don’t want to say they only gave 95% effort last time and this time they’ll give 98% effort. I guess it doesn’t sound as grand to use percentages properly.

And yes I do understand that when used the term is not meant to be taken literally and is meant figuratively. I do not actually believe we are some sort of android with the capability to check a readout which tells us our percentage effort used.

I am against the use of the term as it is not only wrong, but it sounds totally lame and there are many other words and colourful phrases that could be better used instead.

Please give 100% effort and no more (as you can’t) into making sure we stamp this out.

How to be a Sock Genius

You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I am a bone fide ‘sock genius’ and have been since 1999.

It was in the final year of the 20^th Century that I had a sock epiphany. I was living in Wembley and was matching up my recently washed socks and thinking just how a depressing an activity matching up socks is. I imagined a world where my life was joyous and carefree and where I never had to match another sock again. If only it could be real? Well, it can!

I got rid of my collection of socks that had evolved over the years and went out and bought 50 pairs of black socks. Actually, thinking about it, I bought the socks first before getting rid of my old ones as otherwise I would temporarily have no socks to wear. Anyway, since that day I have never had to match up a sock again.

It really is brilliant.

If a sock becomes damaged, I don’t care! I just throw it away, I haven’t lost a whole pair. I just pick up 2 socks from the pile every morning, it is that simple.

Ah, some people say, what about wear rates, some socks will fade faster than others? This is true, but if you buy quality socks and put your newly washed socks underneath already clean socks in your draw, you will get a fairly even wear rate. There will be subtle differences, but only the most anal sock examiner will notice and I make a point of not befriending anal sock examiners.

Note: anal sock examiner refers to a sock examiner who is particularly anal/pedantic about their sock examining and is not a reference to examining socks for an anus. As far as I know there are no such things as anal socks.

So, go out and buy 50 (or more) pairs of black socks and you too can change your life and become a sock genius like me.

The 24hrs Rule

It’s a rule that didn’t exist 10 years ago, but now the 24hrs rule, although an unwritten rule, governs our etiquette regarding email, SMS text messaging and phone calls. Unless you are ill, on holiday or unexpectedly put in prison, you are meant to reply to this type of electronic message, to a friend or colleague, within 24hrs, anything longer and it is considered rude and an apology would be expected with the message.

Before the predominance of the internet and mobile phones, communication was limited to old fashioned landline telephone calls and snail mail. Now that we carry around electronic devices on our person and engage in social networking several times a day, we fully expect a response to our message within a reasonable time frame, which is no more than 24hours.

If a message goes over 24hrs without a response, then we get very annoyed as it is disrespectful to behave in such an impolite way. Even as the 24hrs barrier approaches we start to get annoyed that the person dares to get close to a contemptible reply time.

We are increasingly becoming more and more impatient and the 24hr rule is starting to become socially unacceptable for text messages and that a response within 12hrs (inclusive of sleep time) is expected. A good friend of mine was even upset the other day that I took 6hrs to reply to her text message and I was ill at the time!

It’s only in the dating arena, as per my previous blog post, where communication is acceptable over the 24hrs period otherwise it seems too keen. More and more we have to communicate with people over different mediums, but also be conscious of how quickly and often we do it. We also learn whether our friends are more responsive to a particular form of communication, some prefer texts, other emails and some even (can you believe it?) actually prefer talking on the phone!

I’m quite happy with the 24hrs rule but I worry that we are moving towards a world where instant responses are required. I am not a fan of that and that is why I don’t log into instant messaging systems unless I have arranged to chat to somebody.

The Internet Dating Myths

It’s been around for quite a few years now and has become to most people a fairly acceptable way of meeting new people. Not the only way of meeting people, but just another way of meeting someone. Following some chats with male and female friends who also partake in online dating I was surprised that they still believed some of the myths of internet dating and had not been aware of some of the cold realities of the process.

Myth:  Online dating is a place where both men and women can and will make the first move with each other

Harsh Reality: Men have to make the first move in the vast majority of cases. Women who do make the first move are ‘probably’ not that attractive.

The virtual dating world unfortunately mirrors the real world and men have to approach women and send the first message. Men who do not bother and just sit back and wait for interest in them will not, unless they are Brad Pitt, get much attention and if or when they do, it will not be from hot chicks.

Hot chicks need only to create their account and wait for the messages from eager men and pick the best ones to reply to. Average-looking women may need to ‘wink’ (or equivalent function) to get a guy’s attention and make it clear they are receptive to a message from them. Minging women need to make more of an effort online and send messages. Whereas all men, minging or otherwise, have to make the effort.

Myth:  Online dating is a quick and easy way to meet great new people

Harsh Reality: It actually takes up a lot of your time, especially if you are a bloke, as you have to play the numbers game to be successful.

You can spend ages trawling through pages of profile pictures, clicking on an individual profile to find out that the main photo was clearly taken a long time ago compared to the others. Rather than search the profile for positives, you end up searching it to see if they have things that put you off, like, for example, whether they are slim or fat, tall or short, divorced, have kids, whether they drink or not, or if they are religious and if they can write a coherent sentence? Why do so many people put up group photos when the photo is so small you cannot make out the person? Or if they do, they put up a picture where they are standing next to someone who is far more attractive? I’m always suspicious of profiles where you do not get to see their face that clearly in more than one photo.

Myth:  Women will judge men on their witty and personal opening message

Harsh Reality: Rubbish. They may not even read it. Like men, they will judge you on your profile picture and if you don’t look too bad they may even read some of your profile and if they fancy you they will reply despite what your opening message says.

I’ve heard some women complain that the opening message from a guy seems like it has been copied and pasted or is not more of an effort than ‘How’s it going?’ The majority of the time this is probably true as men know there is absolutely no point spending ages crafting a personalised and humorous message as chances are it won’t even get read. A friend of mine had automated rejection emails from girls who hadn’t even read his message!

Not so much a myth, but it surprises a lot of people how impolite Internet Dating can be as it seems to have its own social conventions and etiquette. For example, if you start chatting/messaging someone it is perfectly acceptable to stop communicating with them without explanation or a goodbye. Even if you meet up with someone, people will just stop communicating without having to go through the awkward, “sorry, I’m just not interested” conversation.

I’ve noticed that in London particularly, and this is probably true of other big cities, that people tend to play games more, which I really hate. It all seems rather false.

That being said I have met some really nice people through online dating, but think I may take a break from it for a while. Of late, I seem to have done better meeting people I like the old fashioned way!

The Trauma of Stool Samples

It’s one of those things that you hope you never have to do in life, but I have twice had to give a stool sample for the doctor and they have been the most traumatic experiences of my life. Firstly, they give you a tiny sample jar, which I think is the same as the urine sample jar, which also has a little spatula built into the lid. When the Doctor gave it to me, I couldn’t hold back my horror as there is no way you can poo straight into it. So I asked her if she had any tips on how to use it? Then she had the look of horror as she was quite young and I’m pretty sure no one had asked her that before.

The Doctor told me that the easiest method is to defecate into another receptacle and then scoop the faeces from there into the sample jar. Why do Doctors talk like that? Is there a class at medical school called ‘You can’t say shit or poo to a Patient’? The first stool I had to give was the most traumatic as I was dreading it and put it off for nearly a week (note: I did actually poo during this time, I wasn’t storing it up or anything). When providing a sample, you want to do a good poo and I figured a solid poo would be easier to deal with in an el fresco situation.

My sample kit consisted of the sample jar and the bit of cardboard that Amazon wraps DVDs in when they send them to you. They are actually ideal as you can slide them under the toilet seat and they will reach to the other side of the toilet easily without risk of falling. So all you need to do for Step 1 of the process is do a poo like you would normally. In practice, it doesn’t feel normal though, it feels really weird.

Step 2 of the process is the most traumatic as you have to get some of the poo from your Amazon DVD cardboard to the sample jar and it makes me sick to even think about it again. The first thing that strikes you as you take a pause to mentally prepare yourself for what you need to do next, is that poo, when not in water, really does stink quite a lot. The second thing that strikes you is that the ‘handy’ spatula they provide is utterly pathetic as you push, probe and cut your own poo so it can be placed into the sample jar. I wretched several times before getting enough poo into the sample jar.

Step 3 is the disposal of the remaining poo and the Amazon DVD cardboard. The first is flushed and the second must leave your place of residence immediately!

Step 4 is to take the sample down to your Doctor or hospital. Handy tip here is to have already written your name on the sample jar. Trust me, you don’t want to have to write it on the jar with your own shit inside! By this point you feel good as all the traumatic stuff is out of the way, but Step 4 is actually quite traumatic too, much more than you realise. You have to carry your faeces whilst walking down the street and with other people around. You can’t carry it in your hand so you put it in your pocket and you can still feel the warmth from it. Your poo is really quite warm!

If steps 1-3 weren’t shameful enough for you and you’ve managed to cope with walking down the street holding your own excrement. You then have to hand your shit over to someone else. I had to do it at the GP Surgery reception. I was called forward and the guy said hello and I said I had a sample and very sheepishly handed it over, as if I was passing him drugs, and he held up a plastic tray for me to put it into as he definitely didn’t want to touch it.

What exactly is a Dirty Girl?

I got into a conversation with this drunken Irish girl I met the other day (I wonder how many stories start this way?) and somehow, I am sure it was my fault, we got onto the topic of what exactly constitutes a ‘Dirty Girl’? What does a girl have to do to qualify for this moniker?

Even though the Irish girl was really quite drunk, I must say she objected completely to the whole usage of the term ‘dirty girl’ but did have to accept that some people, mainly men, do use it. Clearly, it is somewhat of a subjective issue, but there must be some generally accepted criteria of what is or isn’t dirty for a girl. It’s different for a boy, of course, but we’ll get to that in a mo.

The dirty line seems to gravitate around anal sex. To some, a woman who does anal sex could be conceived as dirty, but to others this could be quite tame and standard. We came to an agreement that a woman who asks for anal sex is probably a Dirty Girl. We also agreed that a woman who asks you to shit in her mouth is definitely dirty.

It is slightly unfair to women that there isn’t an equivalent ‘Dirty Boy’, but if there was then the dirty line would be very different as there is an assumption that men are automatically dirty whereas women are perceived to be more pure and less experimental sexually. This is, of course, complete guff.

 

Dirty Girl is not always used by men as an entirely derogatory term and this way of categorising a woman is useful to us. Some men are attracted to and want to particularly meet Dirty Girls and others prefer non-Dirty. Being a Dirty Girl says nothing about your intelligence, social status or ethnicity; you could be the Queen and still be a Dirty Girl. She and Prince Phillip have been married for over 60 years and so must have done all kinds of sick and depraved stuff by now.

As an aside, and not based on personal experience I promise you, but I would be worried about actually shitting in someone’s mouth. Firstly, it is just a bit weird; Secondly, you have to think about aim/trajectory and thirdly, you want to provide a good poo for them without needing a bit of a fart and a widdle as well.

Wise Words #3: Annoying

On very rare occasions I utter something that like it could be wise, but may just be jibberish??

“Being annoying is an under-appreciated skill that takes years to master. In particular, only a few of us know how to balance the annoying to nice ratio to enable you to be annoying to the same person year after year after year.”

Jake McMillan

Are you a Drifter, a Sparky or a Normalton?

I met with a good pal of mine recently, SAPessi, who wanted to share with me his ill thought theory that some people are ‘drifters’ and they wander through life without aim or aspiration, following other people and moaning about their position. SAPessi really doesn’t like drifters and gave the example of a particular drifter he knows who is annoying and who we soon categorised as being a ‘cautious-drifter’.

Note: SAPessi is a serious blogger and so wanted me to publish his thoughts. I invited him to review this blog post and have included his comments below.

I remarked that coming up with the notion that some people are drifters is not that amazing or new. We discussed the concept further as he said that all non-drifters hate drifters and I didn’t think this was the case, that actually there were some people who didn’t mind drifters who were themselves not drifters.

SAPessi: That’s just not possible. We all hate drifters. They are miserable and annoying. To think that these people are just one species away from being human beings!

We further agreed there are 3 main categories of people (with many sub-divisions of each):

Drifters – As mentioned, these are people who wander aimlessly and annoy people like SAPessi. ‘Charming-drifters’ are the most annoying type of drifter.

SAPessi: that’s very misleading. True I hate drifters. But I hate everyone else equally.

Sparkys- These are people who have lots of ideas all of the time, are easily distracted and find it hard to focus on one thing for any length of time. SAPessi is an ‘OCD-Sparky’ and I am a ‘Laid-back-Sparky. SAPessi hates the term ‘sparky’ but has not been able to come up with anything better.

SAPessi: We don’t go through life on fire! That’s the only possible outcome of a spark. We really need to come up with a better term.

Normaltons – People who are not Drifters or Sparkys.

There are sub-categories of people, e.g. Charmers, which can transcend across the three categories. Another type is ‘Dullards’ (very dull people) who can also be in each category. A dullard-drifter is probably the dullest of the dullards.

SAPessi: I really, really hate them

You also get in all 3 categories those who are ‘cautious’ and ‘cynical’.

SAPessi: [about cautious] you all know these people, health and safety officials in disguise whose only objective is to take the fun out of your life by being all sensible

So, which type and sub-category do you belong to? And do you think I need to get medical attention for SAPessi?

To LOL or not to LOL that is the question

Come on, how often do you actually laugh out loud in an IM chat? I know some are against the use of ‘lol’ completely, but I think it is okay to use if you are genuinely laughing, but what I hate is the liberal use of lol when no laughing has taken place at all.

Many people use lol when someone has written something only mildly amusing and it’s just not right! Don’t even get me started on lmao (laughing my ass off) and the ridiculous rotfl (rolling on the floor laughing) … I mean, if you’re rolling on the floor laughing, how are you typing?!

The trouble has arisen because people are not aware of the alternatives that can be used instead of lol when you are not actually laughing out loud. If you’re not already aware, then this is what you should be using:

tsf – that’s so funny

tf – that’s funny

ss – slightly smiling

and their opposites:

nf – not funny

snf – so not funny

So please use them and only use lol when you are actually laughing otherwise the lol will become even more meaningless.

Jake McMillan

Top 10 Movie Characters of all Time

The list is finally complete. The deliberations are now over and the top ten list of the best movie characters of all time is finished. Boy, it’s been a lot tougher than I thought!

You end up having to make impossible choices between characters that are nothing alike, for example, how can you really compare Al Pacino’s Tony Montana from Scarface with Eddie Murphy’s Axl Foley in Beverly Hills Cop? Also, just because a character is in one of your favourite films of all time, doesn’t make necessarily them one of the best characters of all time.

Being somewhat of a movie buff I was surprised at how ‘mainstream’ my top ten movie characters were. However, I picked the characters that for me, and you are very welcome to disagree, have made the biggest impression and that still resonate with me.

No. 10 in my list begins here, but as a clue here are some of the characters that didn’t quite make the top 10:

Bruce Wayne

Hans Solo

Barbarella

Tony Montana

Butch Cassidy

Catherine Tremell (from Basic Instinct)

Keyser Soze

Darth Vader

Neo (from The Matrix)

The Good (from the Good, The Bad & the Ugly)

Ron Burgundy

Axl Foley

Michael Corleone

Dirty Harry

Hannibal Lector

 

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